Infrared spectroscopy as a novel tool to diagnose onychomycosis

[en] Background: The determination of causative organisms of onychomycosis is still not optimal. There remains a need for a cheap, fast and easy-to-perform diagnostic tool with highly distinctive capacities. Objectives: To determine whether ATR-FTIR spectroscopy can detect and differentiate causative agents in a culture based, ex vivo nail and in vivo nail model. Methods: A methodological study was conducted. Both the ex vivo nail model and in vivo pilot study were carried out in an academic university hospital. Results: Analysis of cultured fungi revealed spectral differences for dermatophytes (1692- 1606 and 1044-1004 cm-1) and non-dermatophytes/yeasts (973-937 cm-1), confirmed by dendrograms showing an excellent separation between samples from different genera or species. Exploration of dermatophytes, non-dermatophytes and yeasts growing on ex vivo nails exposed prominent differences from 1200 to 900 cm-1. Prediction models resulted in a Accepted Article This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 96.9% accurate classification of uninfected nails and nails infected with dermatophytes, nondermatophytes and yeasts. Overall correct classification rates of 91.0%, 97.7% and 98.6% were obtained for discrimination between dermatophyte, non-dermatophyte and yeast genera or species, respectively. Spectra of in vivo infected and uninfected nails also revealed distinct spectral differences (3000-2811 cm-1, 1043-950 cm-1 and 1676-1553 cm-1), illustrated by two main clusters (uninfected versus infected) on a dendrogram. Conclusions: Our data suggest that ATR-FTIR spectroscopy may be a promising, fast and accurate method to determine onychomycosis, including identification of the causative organism, bypassing the need for lengthy fungal cultures.

Disciplines :

Laboratory medicine & medical technology
Dermatology

Author, co-author :

De Bruyne, Sander; Ghent university hospital > Laboratory medecine

Speeckaert, Reinhart

Boelens, Jerina; Ghent University Hospital > Clinical microbiology

Hayette, Marie-Pierre ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences biomédicales et précliniques > Bactériologie, mycologie, parasitologie, virologie

Speeckaert, Marijn; Ghent University Hospital > Nephrology

Delanghe, Joris

Language :

English

Title :

Infrared spectroscopy as a novel tool to diagnose onychomycosis

Alternative titles :

[fr] La spectroscopie infra-rouge: un nouvel outil diagnostique pour les onychomycoses

Publication date :

2019

Journal title :

British Journal of Dermatology

ISSN :

0007-0963

eISSN :

1365-2133

Publisher :

Wiley, Oxford, United Kingdom

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Available on ORBi :

since 15 October 2018

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